Guide to Reading Letter Transcriptions
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| Textual Feature | Appearance |
|---|---|
| passage deleted with a strikethrough mark | |
| passage deleted by overwritten added letters | |
| passage added above the line | passage with added text above |
| passage added on the line | passage with added text inline |
| passage added in the margin | passage with text added in margin |
| handwritten addition to a typewritten letter | typed passage with added handwritten text |
| missing or unreadable text | missing text noted with "[illegible]" |
| uncertain transcriptions | word[?] |
| notes written by someone other than Willa Cather | Note in another's hand |
| printed letterhead text | printed text |
| text printed on postcards, envelopes, etc. | printed text |
| text of date and place stamps | stamped text |
| passage written by Cather on separate enclosure. | written text |
Rec'd SEP 21 1926
Ans _____ The Shattuck Inn3 Sunday My Dear Blanche1;
Nobody in the world was ever more delighted by a present4, and certainly nobody ever had more cause to be. I never saw such a beautiful blouse—it’s wonderful to have such an exotic thing drop down on one here in New Hampshire5. I have had it two nights and have worn it two nights, to the admiration of all. It’s just the right size. It’s so dazzlingly Chinese that I call it6 "the Shanghai’s Gesture"7!
I have nothing but good news about the "Archbishop"8. I
am pretty well pleased with it. The Forum9 will begin publication in January and will use six
instalments, some sixty thousand words, about three fourths of the entire text. I
will have
the
your copy ready to go to the printers in November, can read
the proofs early in the winter and be all ready for early publication next autumn10.
Please ask your secretary to telephone Frank Dodd11 regarding the enclosed letter, explaining to him why it is not possible12, and that you are bringing out the story13.
I wrote Mr. Samuel Knopf14’s secretary for
several books some time ago—three copies of “My Mortal Enemy” and one copy of two copies of “A
Lost Lady15.” Please remind her to send them along as soon as they are
ready. The remaining complimentary copies of the new book are to be held at the
office for me until I return. I shall be at Five Bank Street16 again this winter.
Information about this letter:
- Source File:
- cat.let0844.xml
- Letter identifier
- 0844
- Contents
- Document is one leaf, handwritten on recto and verso.
- Person to whom letter was written
- Blanche Wolf Knopf1
- Date letter was written
- [September 19, 1926]
- Explanation of conjectured date
-
September 19, 1926, was the Sunday before September 21, 1926, when the letter was stamped received.
- Place letter was written
- Jaffrey, New Hampshire, United States2
- Location of original letter
- Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., Records (MS-00062), University of Texas, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austin, TX
Individual Annotations
Shattuck Inn (Jaffrey, NH): Hotel built in 1910 in Jaffrey, N,H owned and operated by E. C. Shattuck until his death in February 1933, when operation was taken over by his daughter, Eleanor Shattuck Austermann, and her husband George Austermann. Cather stayed at the Shattuck Inn many times, often with Edith Lewis, finding it a useful place to work. In 1947, Cather wrote of the Shattuck Inn: “I have never found any place where I could work in such peace and happiness as in the little rooms up in the top of the Shattuck Inn” (#1748).
On 14 September 1926, Knopf wrote asking when Cather would return from Jaffrey and referred to "a little gift from Paris" being sent separately.
Cather is referencing the title of the sensational melodrama about prostitution in the Chinese city, which made its Broadway debut earlier in 1926.
Death Comes for the Archbishop was published in book form on 1 September 1927.
Dodd, Mead Co. published the Best American Short Stories series and evidently wanted to include My Mortal Enemy in the 1926 volume.
5 Bank Street (New York City): The apartment Cather shared with Edith Lewis beginning in 1912, located in Greenwich Village in the Manhattan borough of New York City. Subway construction forced Cather and Lewis to relocate in 1927.
Person Annotations
Knopf, Blanche Wolf (1894-1966). Vice President of New York
publisher Alfred Knopf, Inc. Blanche Wolf founded Alfred Knopf,
Inc., in 1915 with her future husband Alfred Knopf. They married in 1916 and
their son Alfred “Pat” Knopf was born in 1918. Active in the business
throughout her life, Blanche Knopf recruited a number of prominent European
and Latin American writers to the Knopf list (in translation) by traveling
to meet them. In recognition of her work with writers such as Jean-Paul
Sartre and Albert Camus, she was inducted into the French Legion of Honor in
1949. She became president of Alfred Knopf, Inc., in 1957 when her husband
became chairman. Through her work in the publishing house she also promoted
writers of the Harlem Renaissance such as Langston Hughes. Cather’s letters
to Knopf focus primarily on business but the two also became friends.
Dodd, Frank Courtenay (1875-1968). American publisher. Born in Winnebago, MN, son of minister Ira S. Dodd and Louisa Morley Dodd, Frank C. Dodd moved with his family back to New York City in the early 1880s. After graduating from Yale University, in 1900 he joined Dodd, Mead, and Company, the publishing firm of his uncle, Frank H. Dodd, as a stock boy in the shipping department. He became sales manager of the firm, then its treasurer in 1916, its vice-president in 1926, then its president in 1931. Dodd married Emily Sayre Harris in 1917; they divorced soon thereafter, and he married Katharine Pfeifer in 1921. In 1926 Dodd apparently approached Cather about publishing Death Comes for the Archbishop, a proposal she had the Knopfs refuse.
Knopf, Samuel (1862-1932). Treasurer of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Born in Poland, Samuel Knopf’s family brought him to the U.S. as a child. He headed his own advertising agency until 1921, when his son Alfred’s publishing firm incorporated as Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. and he invested in the company and became its treasurer. Active in the company’s affairs, especially management of its London office, he occasionally assumed responsibility for Cather’s affairs in the absence of Alfred and Blanche Knopf, and Cather came to know him personally during her frequent visits to the Knopf offices. When he died, she wrote to his son about the “absolute confidence” he inspired in her (#1672).
Place Annotations
Work Annotations
The Shanghai Gesture (1925) by John Colton
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927) by Willa Cather
Forum
My Mortal Enemy (1926) by Willa Cather
A Lost Lady (1923) by Willa Cather
